In this paper Justice Aftab Alama proposes to present a perspective on the role of the Supreme Court of India in upholding the ideal of secularism while balancing the interests of a deeply plural society like India. He will try to cover, very broadly, three areas; one concerning community based rights or minority rights and how in recent years the Court has tended to give priority to individual rights and freedom over community based rights; two how the Court has perceived secularism and how in some of its later decisions it has tended to take a mono-culturist rather than a pluralist view of secularism and third, how the Court has tried to regulate the State’s intervention in religious affairs.
